The quick take

The Huawei P8 is a great phone with a capable camera, long battery life and an expansive array of features, set back by weird software. The hardware is top-notch, but Huawei's EMUI 3.1 is buggy in places, and often at odds with Google's preloaded services.

The Good

Great build quality, with premium materials

Slim, lightweight design

Great performance and battery life

Highly capable camera

The Bad

Buggy, overbearing software

Much of Lollipop is hidden behind Huawei's skin

Google services take a back seat, and in some cases don't work properly

Android Wear support is completely broken

Width

Height

Thickness

5.7 in144.9mm

2.83 in72.1mm

0.25 in6.4mm

Display:

5.2-inch Full HD

IPS LCD display

1920x1080 resolution (435ppi)

Camera:

13MP, ƒ/2.0 lens, OIS

8MP front-facing camera

Battery:

2680mAh battery

Fixed internal battery

Chips:

Octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 930 processor

4x2.0GHz A53e cores + 4x1.5GHz A53 cores

3GB RAM

16GB internal storage

microSD slot

Huawei P8 Full Review

As big as it is in the broader world of telecommunications, Huawei doesn't have the brand recognition of LG, Samsung or even HTC in Western markets. Indeed, it's hard enough for most of us to agree on how to pronounce the company's name. (H'wah-way is what we're told, by the way.) Nevertheless, the Chinese wireless giant is eager to push further into Europe and establish itself as a player in the notoriously tricky U.S. market. This year, that starts with a new flagship smartphone: the Huawei P8.

It's pronounced 'H'WAH-way.'

Having ditched the old "Ascend" brand, beefed up its hardware and moved to all-metal construction, Huawei will be hoping its flagship can be seen in the same light as the more established smartphone brands. Indeed, its London launch event was full of favorable comparisons with the Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6.

Huawei's premium hardware has been improving steadily over the past couple of years, arguably outpacing many of the bigger Android brands. Yet on the whole, its high-end phones have been primarily sold in Asia and a handful of European countries. (In the U.S., for instance, you'd probably be more familiar with Huawei's many mid-range offerings.)

As such, the company's EMUI software appears to be built, first and foremost, for a Chinese audience — a market in which Google doesn't officially operate, and where tracking down trustworthy apps can be challenging. And when that software suddenly has to live alongside a full suite of Google apps and services, things can become a little awkward. That's pretty much the P8 in a nutshell: amazing hardware paired with software to madden Android purists. Read on for a detailed breakdown of Huawei's 2015 flagship.

''Buggy, overbearing software''
In what way is buggy? I haven't noticed any bug ! all works as it should ! pleease !
''Much of Lollipop is hidden behind Huawei's skin'' excuse me??? so galaxy phones has no hidden ? or LG G3/G4? what about their skin ?? pleease stop!
''Google services take a back seat, and in some cases don't work properly'' it is ONLY YOUR fault that u closing every process what phone reminds you
only stupid ppl will close important google processes!
''Android Wear support is completely broken'' WTF is this suppose to mean jeeezus

"It's not the user's job to worry about background tasks and power management, that's the job of the operating system."

You do realize in phones without such management, that it does nothing at all, the operating system is actually much more advanced here. In other phones the apps will either keep running and drain battery, or force close them without your consent. With this phone, you get a choice and if gives you the info you need to make that choice!

Good review - I actually LIKE Huawei Emui a lot. It's different, it's phone Mamee and permissions apps are like non else and theming is excellent. By the way, you can download a while bunch of themes; p7, p6, mate7, the honour series...literally hundreds, will all work across the phone range. Infact, we were waiting to see the P8s complement! I'm most concerned with the fluidity of the phone, the P7 was pretty choppy in action.

Your complaint about Huawei's power manager is quite invalid for me as you can easily turn it off.
Also common users like to have that extra control in the form of "protected apps". But you are right in saying that Huawei just screws google services. But I think you are exaggerating it a bit.

And users who know xda site can get some amazing themes.. Please take a look at these themes made by me :)

Looks great,although I couldn't do it unless there's at least a good amount of custom rom support. I couldn't be less interested in their stock rom. I've seen people question whether this could be the next nexus design. The only reason I'd be completely against that is because this phone is the ultimate iPhone lookalike. It does look nice,but I wouldn't want android in its purest form to come in the body of an unapologetic iPhone knockoff. It'd be pretty hard to defend that haha.

Photos don't really do much for this color. It's not really glittery, in actual fact in normal light it's so pale it almost looks silver.

Launcher's don't solve the issues. The launcher isn't the biggest issue with the software on the P8. The biggest issue is it's just broken. I have one too and Alex is on the money with everything he says.

A third party launcher is going to fix no Google notifications on the lock screen, unreadable dark gray on black Google notifications, non-expandable and duplicate Google notifications, and Android Wear support? Wow, some launcher!

I wonder if the partially broken Google services helped with battery? I know that the biggest drain on a modern Android phone, other than screen obviously, is Google Play Services. Location, push notifications and such are a significant drain on any Android phone fully integrated with Google.

Cyanogenmod is incapable of utilizing ois on any ois camera phone. My g2 camera is much worse in low light and overall picture quality on any rom other than stock based. If you have ois camera which basically every flagship does now stay away from cm and other non stock rom. If you don't care for camera than go for it.

Yes because of all the spliced versions, pure Android Lollipop is the most buggy, most overdone, complicated like an iPhone, and least likely to get timely updates. While skinned versions, that for sure get the latest quick updates along with the most useful pre-installed apps and software that everyone just craves, provide more long term satisfaction over Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo and Gingerbread. Skinned Android for the win!

I hope it is. This seems like a good starting point for a new Nexus 5: good but not bleeding edge internals, one handed size, fairly low price (under $500 full retail), camera doesn't suck this time. Software is irrelevant since Big G will handle that. There will always be the 6 or its replacement for those who want a bigger screen or faster performance